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halloween, holidays

We’re Off to See the Wizard


Introducing the cutest crew in Oz! I’m a few days late on sharing our Halloween pictures but we had a short hospital stay with that little munchkin up there so I was unable to get it posted any sooner. Thankfully we are home now and Desmond is feeling much better! I will share more about it on my next post in a few days. But I just wanted to thank everyone who reached out to us with well wishes and letting us know you were praying! We have felt so loved!

Anyway, I thought the kids’ costumes looked so adorable this year so I just wanted to share a bit about them. I have a big obsession with doing family themed costumes and no matter how stressed out I feel leading up to Halloween, I still can’t give up that obsession. Thankfully my kids love it too so they always love to help come up with a theme. This year was a bit difficult because two of our costume ideas fell through. But I think it ended up being for the best because they looked adorable as the Wizard of Oz characters.

I typically like to DIY or thrift items to piece together their costumes. This year I only ended up doing a little bit of DIYing (totally proper grammar right there.) Some of the costumes ended up being purchased pre-made. But since they were also thrifted, it still felt like a lot of work to find all the right pieces.

Liam, the Scarecrow. And Kai, the Tin Man. Both boys were super excited with how their costumes turned out. Kai was a trooper and never complained about that obnoxious poster board costume, even though I know it had to be annoying and uncomfortable at times. 

Kingston was thrilled to be the Cowardly Lion. And I was thrilled that he was thrilled. Evangeline’s Dorothy dress was actually the first piece I found (at a thrift store.) That was the piece that inspired the whole theme. I’m pretty sure that every time I looked at her the other day, I told her how beautiful/adorable she looked. She was the perfect Dorothy!

I had a hard time deciding who Desmond would be. I found this little outfit (I think it’s actually a Raggedy Andy costume?) from Goodwill and thought it would be perfect for a munchkin costume. But even better than the actual costume is the hairdo he was rocking. I laughed every time I looked at him. I seriously almost changed my mind at the last minute, thinking maybe he should be the Wizard instead. But I’m SO glad I stuck with my original plan because he was so cute and he got so many compliments that night.

And my little Clementine (who didn’t want to stand still for pictures) was Glenda the Good Witch. Surprisingly, she kept the crown on her head for most of the night!

You can probably tell from the photos that is was kind of chilly outside and all the kids were ready to hop back in the heated van haha. But they were troopers and let me take a few pictures first.

Even though I stressed myself out, I was so excited to see it all come together! And they won the costume contest at the Fall Festival we visited that night so it made it all worth it! I’m already scheming for next year’s costume and hoping that the big boys will stay on board with the family costume idea for many more years.

Anyway, I think that’s all I’ll bore you with for now. But I’ll leave you with one more Halloween photo, featuring one of my favorite quotes from Michael Scott (The Office.)  And in case you’re wondering, Clementine cooperated for maaaybe 20 seconds so I’m amazed that we got a decent photo.

I hope you had a fun Halloween as well! Have a happy weekend!

November 4, 2017
Blog, holidays, kids, Videos, Vlog

Valentine’s Cupcakes


Target has already stocked their dollar spot with spring decorations and St. Patrick’s Day and Easter decor and I’m sitting here typing up a blog post about Valentine’s Day. But since they still had Valentine’s Day stuff on clearance in the back of the store, I’m going to say that it’s not too late to post this blog post. And don’t you dare try to judge me for using Target’s marketing timeline to my justify my blogging timeline. Don’t. you. dare. (Also, I posted a new vlog at the end of the post!!)

Before we had kids, Valentine’s Day was never super exciting to me. I was never one of those that totally opposed the holiday but I also never really did much to celebrate it. Once the kids started getting old enough to understand holidays a little better, I fell in love (pun absolutely intended) with Valentine’s Day. Now we are all about the hearts, red, pink, and love love love leading up to the big day. We usually like to make sugar cookies but since we just did some for Christmas (and the fact that Liam and I don’t even care for them) we decided to do cupcakes this time around.

Not just any cupcakes–cupcakes from an Aldi cake mix. Because, hey, I have 6 kids and sometimes that’s what you get. Plus I thought it would be fun for Liam to read the directions to everyone and they could make them by themselves (with a little help from their mom—sung to the tune of the Beatles’ song.)

When I wasn’t holding Clem, I was videoing on the GoPro so I didn’t really get many pictures. But I’m sure you really don’t care to see 30 pictures of the kids gathered around the Kitchenaid. And no boxed cupcakes would complete without store bought icing! I totally prefer homemade but this was wayyyy easier.

Desmond woke up from his nap just in time for the cupcakes to be iced. We put him on a chair and he immediately grabbed an uniced cupcake and tried to take a giant bite out of the paper. He quickly found the right way to eat and devoured it in minutes. They weren’t the fanciest cupcakes in the world. But the kids had a ton of fun making (and eating) them and that’s really all that matters.

And Clem just watched with that sweet face of hers. I just can’t get over those cheeks and that face.


and a few Valentine’s related iphone shots…

And look at this sweet watercolor portrait of Clem by Painted Truth Co. on instagram. She has an etsy shop and does custom portraits. She just happened to find Clem’s pictures through instagram and painted a couple. They are so so adorable!

This picture was way harder than I expected without Don at home. I had to fix Evangeline’s hair, hope she didn’t move, then I had to fix my own hair with the boys holding my phone over my head to see myself. Then I had Kai (6 years old) take the picture all while I was suffering one of the top 3 worst headaches (migraines?) I have ever had in my life (after we took the picture I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore because it got so bad.) Oh what I do for a picture sometimes haha.

So blurry, but so cute! And look! They are all smiling….at the same time!! It’s a Valentine’s miracle.

We went out to get donuts for Valentine’s breakfast.

And I made the most delicious cookie cake for dessert that night. This picture is so blurry but they wanted a picture with the cookie cake so I obliged. Also, anyone want the most amazing recipe in the world for cookie cake? It far surpasses store bought–like, I can’t even eat store bought because the quality is just that much worse. If a few people are interested, I will put together a post to share the recipe.

I hope you had a happy Valentine’s Day, however you celebrate it!

Make sure to check out the video of the kids making the cupcakes!



February 21, 2017